Guns and gun ownership are sacrosanct here, and people who do not live in rural America do not understand what are and are not acceptable topics of conversation. Talk of church and prayer and getting back to 'the good old days' is the norm here; talk of gun reform or gun control is not; and talking openly outside this norm, especially if you are a business owner, can hurt your family, your livelihood.

I’d long lost the fun of the game. I saw only how I’d used the game like the smiling façade of a carnival barker, the mask I wore while I tried to figure out who the hell I was. See the happy new wife, still having plenty of sex! Plunk. See the smiling stepmother, proving to all those who warned her off — Do you know what you’re getting into? Those kids will ruin your marriage. Have you lost your senses, your marbles, your mind? — that she can love, and be loved by, someone else’s children.

The truth is, beyond the confines of coastal news and entertainment, much of white, churchgoing middle America accepts both Trump’s “locker room talk” excuse and his wife’s lackadaisical “boys will be boys” defense. Many of the women I meet here in Kentucky — of all ages — do not follow national news, much less national politics. They also tend to follow their pastors’, or their husbands’, talking points: Clinton can’t be trusted, she thinks she’s a man, she should look at her own husband and her own marriage. I suspect they looked at their own marriages and families, as well. Was Trump any different in his rhetoric from their own husbands, their brothers, their fathers? Their pastors? What could they do? Men have needs.